Open Carry; an exercise in common sense, not picking the best seat on the short bus.

So...Kory Watkins is probably one of the more visible open carry advocates, mainly because he can tell you how single pane windows have a different flavor from double pane, oh and because he takes the passion for open carry from reasonable to level-potato.  Of course hes not the only open carry advocate exercising a passion over reasonableness.  My personal opinion right out of the gate is that there is a time and a place for open carry and that time and place really isn't a political stunt on a street corner of a busy suburban street.

Now, we have all heard the now-buzzword-phrase "common sense gun control" and how what it usually means is more restrictive gun laws.  This isn't about that; the 2A community knows BS when they hear it and that phrase is usually attached to lines of thinking like the Second Amendment was written when semi-automatics didn't exist so they certainly didn't have them in mind.  Fair point, assuming men like James Madison and George Mason were not (as far as we know) time travelers and may have not been able to predict advancements in technology when drafting the Second.  To me, that point loses its edge entirely when we look at their intent in the Second which was simply that Madison;  

"did not invent the right to keep and bear arms when he drafted the Second Amendment; the right was pre-existing at both common law and in the early state constitutions." -Michael J. Quinlan

And furthermore the Second Amendment originally would have read like this;

A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, being the best security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; but no person religiously scrupulous shall be compelled to bear arms.

Now debate was had because it was felt that the "religiously scrupulous" text could be used to destroy the standing militia.  The Second went through many drafts and adjustments after that, including careful attention to punctuation and scrutiny over specific words used.  If so much attention went into the structure of what has become the most controversial of amendments, one could safely assume that Madison knew firearms technology would advance and didn't address it because it is way besides the point.  After much debate, our the final draft read as we know it today:

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

Now, personally, I always wonder how different the debate would be if "Composed of the body of the people" had been left in, as it identifies every citizen as being supported by the Second and would have gone a long way towards killing the anti-gun crowds tired "They only meant militias" line but that's another conversation.

All this said, we have come a long way since the late 1700s and thanks to the advancements in technology, any one person can have a voice even when they have nothing interesting to say.  Anyone can make a scene and get attention nationwide as opposed to the past when such behavior may have been limited to the local population.  The open carry movement is one such example, as the common sense advocates are drowned out by the ridiculous behavior of the more, well, ridiculous advocates who make much better news copy because of their outlandish and sometimes juvenile behavior because our media is largely driven to report only the spectacle, not the boring actions of responsibility.

Are all open carry advocates irresponsible?  No, I would say not.  I know many people who open carry and they do so very responsibly in environments where open carry makes polite sense.  The mountains of Montana, a ranch in Texas, the back woods of North Carolina and many other situations where ready access to a firearm is prudent and part of a daily routine.  Hunters, hikers, outdoors-men and any number of citizens going about an activity where such behavior is accepted by society.  Open carry as an intelligent and trained decision is wise if the situation calls for it; however open carry strictly for the reasons of a political statement is foolish.  I am not the deciding voice on what does and doesn't make sense, this is merely my opinion but it is an educated opinion.  Society has the right as a collective people to find something offensive, disturbing or scary.  If you want to raise awareness for a right and that right includes the open display of a mechanical device designed to shoot lethal projectiles, one should be prepared for your behavior to offend or scare people.  The way to not offend or scare them is not to act more foolish, more brazen or scream your point more loudly.  I spent some time in Mexico and no matter how loud the tourists spoke English, the Mexicans still didn't understand English because the volume was not the issue, it was the message.  Screaming your point, either vocally or through physical displays of assholery like the Chiplotegate nonsense only serves to scream louder at someone who doesn't speak your language.

When I was in Mexico I wasn't required to know how to speak Spanish, just as the Mexican locals were not required to understand what I was saying.  It was an inability to communicate and it was my responsibility to find a way to get my message across because I needed to.  No volume of voice or pantomime of arms and hands would get them to understand me.  I needed to learn the language.

Is the open carry debate any different?  The general population receives the majority of their firearms education from TV, movies, music, "firearms experts" and journalists who cant remember what helicopter they were on, let alone be bothered to check facts.  In a nation where people usually go with the first Google result as the truth or have such a strong confirmation bias that a reasonable conversation with them is akin to pulling a mattress through a mail slot, we have to try harder to show those on the fence or those against guns that the Second Amendment right is a recognition of a natural right, not a man-manufactured excuse to compensate for the size of ones genitalia.

We live in a low-information society (some people only read these for the memes) and most of that low information is gathered visually, because seeing is the easiest way to observe.  If you don't like, or are afraid of what you see, how much work are you going to put into respecting its message?

Responsible open carry isn't a zero-retention kydex holster; a leg rig at the BBQ joint or two rifles slung.  Can you do it?  Sure; but it may be a bad idea for the same reason that I can stand across from an elementary school with a bullhorn and recite Celly Cell lyrics in between Easy E acapella because society isn't really down with my exercise of Free Speech in that case.

Responsible open carry is hard to define, but easy to practice.  Again, my opinion is that open carry should be for a purpose, not for a statement.  The tired argument of easier access and deterrence goes right out the window when you see how many police officers are killed with their own weapons and how occasionally an open carrier is robbed at gunpoint.  Responsible open carry is having been trained in weapon retention and using a retention holster.  It is a level of awareness commensurate with transporting a lethal device into every environment you go and its presence being obvious.  It is polite difference to those who are bothered by the weapon and a willingness to educate in a reasonable way that goes beyond canned slogans or raised voices.  It is a non-confrontational approach towards a protected right.  Otherwise, you might as well pick up a bullhorn and memorize the lyrics to "Hit the Hooker" before heading out to exercise your First on some 8 year-olds.

Law Enforcement's Divide with the People.

East German Volkspolizei, 1955

We do not have a systemic law enforcement problem in this country.  We do not see the absolute abuse of power of law enforcement as seen in East Germany, cold war Poland or Iraq, El Salvador, Pakistan, India, or many nations in Africa that have historically seen state-supported and sponsored police behavior that not just bordered on, or was criminal, it violated the very essence of human rights.

Gloria Richardson, for example, was ZFG about Bayonets in her face. 

But we do have a serious and widening divide between the state represented by the police, and the citizenry.  This dichotomy between the "protectors" and the "protected" is not a new phenomenon; we have had public issues with the conduct and use of law enforcement as a tool of the government since the beginning of our nation, from the Reconstruction after the Civil War to the Prohibition of the 1920s and beyond, certain parts of law enforcement have taken it upon themselves, or at the direction of the state, to bend, circumvent or break the law in the name of law enforcement.  As with every new generation, someone looks back to the previous generation to show the progress that we have made.

In his assessment of the police, Bruce Smith wrote  in 1940 that, in spite of the still rather bleak picture, "the lessons of history lean to the favorable side."l He pointed to the fact that the then existing police forces had moved a long way from the past associated with the notorious names of Vidocq and Jonathan Wild, and he suggested that the uninterrupted progress justifies the expectation of further change for the better. It is fair to say that this hope has been vindicated by the events of the past 30 years. American police departments of today differ by a wide margin of improvement from those Smith studied in the late in 1930's. 'l'he once endemic features of wanton brutality, corruption, and sloth have been reduced to a level of sporadic incidence, and their surviving vestiges have been denounced by even generally uncritical police apologists. Indeed, police reform, once a cause espoused exclusively by spokesmen from outside the law enforcement camp, has become an internal goal, actively sought and implemented by leading police officials.

                    -Egon Bittner, Ph.D., The Functions of The Police in a Modern Society (1970) 

Now, the interesting part about this quote is that its from a study published in the 1970s and pays little attention to the abuses of law enforcement during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, which should have been fresh in the author's mind yet is suspiciously absent.  I dont believe it was maliciously intentional on the part of the author, rather the public consciousness had not yet shifted to a point where popular opinion was one of total denouncement of the police practices in the south during that time.  Of course not all law enforcement abused their authority during the Civil Rights movement, but many did and they did so in the defense of a law, which may have justified it in their minds.  In hindsight we find their behavior unforgivable.  Hindsight.

So....MRAP?

circa 1920s, long before the Meme existed.

Every generation has its divide with law enforcement and at some point the divide must be addressed.  We are entering our own divide; NSA monitoring,questionable warrants, militarization of police, riot control techniques, enforcement of regulations (as opposed to laws) where force is used and the perceived or actual use of excessive force.  As the government grows, so does its sometimes unchecked ability to change the mission of law enforcement, which is dangerous ground.

My oath as a law enforcement officer is to defend the constitution and through this, the rights of the people.  By arresting a criminal for a crime, I am providing the first step in a remedy to provide the people with a legal solution to a crime committed against the public at large, or an individual citizen, specifically the victim of the crime.  It is my opinion that someone who breaks a law has committed a crime against the people, whereas someone who violates a regulation has administratively wronged the government.  A regulation is a rule of order that has the same power as a law, yet its creation or implementation is often without the express consent of the people and in many cases the violation of a regulation creates a victim in the state where no victim would be had the state not instituted such a regulation.  The often quoted victim-less crime can be found in the mass of government regulations that protect the governments interests, not necessarily the people.  I have no problem with a regulation that serves to ensure the public safety such as the DOT regulations for mandatory safety equipment and function on motor carriers, because an 18-wheeler with substandard brakes is not acceptable on the interstates...but I unequivocally do not agree with an arrest over unregulated cigarette sales or when enforcement of that regulation (where only the state is the victim of violating the regulation) leads to the death of someone.  The nexus of the death of Eric Garner isn't if he could breathe or not, its the enforcement of a regulation where no true victim exists.

This is for protecting and saving lives, not the enforcement of laws and regulations that have no victim.

But this is only part of the cause for today's divide as I see it; the other and perhaps more troubling reason is that some in law enforcement have adopted an attitude fostered by the very nature of law enforcement itself; and that is one of distrust of the public and the belief that a law enforcement officer is not part of the citizenry.  Well, Vox Populi and the law disagrees.  Cops are civilians too, and their primary mission is protection of the people, not protection of the state.  I have worked with many LEOs that "drank the kool aide" and see themselves as separate from the public, the venerable us versus them mentality that is an easy cold to catch because the vast majority of our interactions are with the criminal element, not the honest citizen (which is largely our fault for not taking the time to talk to the people).  If this was simply an issue of semantics in defining terms we could work through it, though the fostered divide leads to a shift in thinking that is very dangerous and that is when the police begin to see Constitutionally positive citizens as some sort of subversive or disruptive group. A more recent example of this attitude was brought to us by the Spokane County (WA) Sheriffs department and a Deputy's remarks when asked why the SO needed armored vehicles:

“We’ve got a lot of constitutionalists and a lot of people that stockpile weapons, a lot of ammunition.”

Essentially the officer, Deputy Jerry Moffett, appears to have the opinion that a pro-constitution opinion is a bad thing; which bothers me greatly seeing as this same Law Enforcement officer is granted all of his powers of office via this same constitution which he is sworn to protect.  Now, to pour gas on the fire, the Spokane Co Sheriff, Ozzie Knezovich says that the video is taken out of context and that

“The term constitutionalist has a widespread meaning. Some people say I am a constitutionalist,” he said. “But people need to understand that there are people who carry that title who have killed police officers.”

My opinion is that he is confusing "Constitutionalist" with "Sovereign Citizen" and should probably correct the definition in his mind before painting with such a broad brush; after all, law enforcement officers have been murdered by Christians, Jews, Republicans, Democrats, Boy Scouts of America Counselors  and many other individuals with respectable monikers, titles or affiliations and there are no law enforcement warnings about these groups.  Unlike the Sovereign movement, a Constituionalist is on the same team a police officer is supposed to be on and that is defense of the constitution from all threats; foreign and domestic.  The Oath I took when I first put on the badge has not changed and I have not forgotten that every aspect of my job as a law enforcement officer is granted by the Constitution; in order to protect the rights provided by the Constitution.

The divide is not an epidemic, at least not yet but it is a problem.  It seems more prevalent than it is do to the magnification by the media/social media, though perception is often reality and the few bad apples mentality is often dismissing the problem instead of addressing it.  As law enforcement officers, we cannot avoid the perception of our actions any more than we can avoid the consequences of that avoidance.  I dont think we "need to open a dialog" because those are platitudes that have as much active use as "hoping for change."  What we need to do is change how we view our daily actions and use officer discretion to honor the color and letter of the law, to remember our oath.  The enforcement of the law is protection of the people and recognizing the defense of peoples rights versus the defense of the governments wants will go a long way towards repairing and improving our relationship

  Our duty is not to administration, office, government, supervisor or shift Sergeant, it is to the Constitution and by that definition and truth, Deputy Moffett is sworn to the same; hes supposed to be a Constitutionalist, too.


To end on a lighter note:

Officer Down: Why No One Cares.

The vitriol, violence and nonsensical behavior of many in public, fueled and televised by the media (and on the internet, Dr. Ben Carson did a wonderful job of showing his firearm training and use of lethal force ignorance, for example) in regards to the Ferguson situation got me thinking.  Have no fear, this article isn't about Ferguson specifically because im sure we are all tired of hearing about it at this point, however, had things gone differently, would you have heard about it at all?

Think to yourself , when was the last time a police officers death made national news?  Have you heard the name Deputy Christoper Smith? What about Chief Michael Pimentel?  Sergeant Michael Joe Naylor, Deputy Danny Oliver, Constable Robert Parker White or Officer Shaun Richard Diamond?  All of these officers and many more this year, were killed in the line of duty in a fashion normally interesting to the news media; they were shot or beaten to death.  Yet no national news, only local news coverage and the major networks aren't interested in picking that up.  If Darren Wilson had lost control of his firearm and been murdered my Mike Brown, would there have been marches, protests, riots?  Would there have been a call for better police training, for new body armor, for smart guns or for more officers?  Would there have been a call for more community focused anti-crime programs?  No, there wouldn't have been.  Wilson's death would have been given the same media attention given to the opening of a new park, or a ribbon cutting for as new expressway.  The Media doesn't care about murdered officers, that is self-evident in their lack of attention to their deaths.  The public perhaps cares more, though as many are driven in their knowledge by what makes the front page of CNN or they catch on the radio on their way to work, you cant care if you dont even know it happened.  Its fairly evident from whats seen on social media that the relationship between law enforcement and the public is broken anyway.

People don't trust the police; not nearly as much as our idealistic memory tells us they did so many generations ago.  No-knock warrants, "militarized gear," DUI check points, traffic stops, police brutality, shooting unarmed but violently dangerous suspects, the list of reasons to not like the police is long.  The divide between cop and citizen gets wider and wider until we literally don't know each other and the mentality is one of us versus them.  If the cop is your frinemy, or someone who makes your skin crawl when they sneak by in a patrol car, if you believe Alex Jones or subscribe to the idea of the police state, why would you care if a cop is murdered?  If you enjoy breaking the law in the form of doing 10 over the speed limit, smoking some weed or stashing away an illegal short barreled rifle for use when the shit hits the fan why would you care if a police officer is beaten to death or shot while sitting in his patrol car doing paperwork?  The police represent, at the very least, a punishment for breaking the law and maybe you want to continue to break the law.  You aren't hurting anyone, after all.  What about all those who are?  Thats different right?  I totally agree, it is different, respecting the fact that it is different is important.

I'm going to be honest, I am biased.  I serve in law enforcement and have for many years.  However I still remember what it was like to hate the cops as a teenager, as a young adult ducking the MPs on post while in the Army, and again as a civilian after the army.  I remember that police officers had no interest in me if they were not there to see me.  Closed off from the world in patrol cars, silent in lines at a fast food restaurant, suspiciously watchful because of what I drove or maybe how I was dressed.  I remember getting the looks.  I also remember giving them years later.  I became, in a way, the officer that I didnt care about, the officer that would shake me up or ruin my night with a traffic stop. I never felt that way about a firefighter or an EMT because they only come to help.  The police, well they can come to help, or they can come to take you to jail.

We don't care when cops die because they aren't people to the mass of the public, they represent money lost to a ticket, an arrest or maybe even a physical altercation.  Their supposed inherent evil and break-the-rules mentality has been captured by film and TV; some of us were told as young children that if we didn't behave that police man would take us to jail.  The divide between citizen and police has been shoveled deep on both sides.  Some cops don't think themselves as civilians, some have a deep seated distrust of the public because the majority of their interactions with the public are with the worst of society (its sort of a job requirement).  We don't trust each other because we don't know each other.

Shockingly, not an accurate representation of the police.

Yesterday I saw a police officer helping a woman change her tire.  I honestly cannot remember the last time I saw that.  Its not his job to do so; but its not his job to not, either.  I did it a few times as a patrol officer, not as many times as I could have.  Serving the public is a phrase in law enforcement, maybe not as much of a practice as it should be.  We know the uniform, the car, but do we know the cop?  We don't care when a cop is murdered because we didn't know him.  There are officers with an invested interest in their community, I know there are, but do you?  Have you met an officer, got to know an officer who has no connection to you other than patrolling where you live or work?

Pictured:  Something you will never see again.

There is no social duty to respect the police, nor moral requirement to care when they are murdered in the line of duty.  No manner of law or pressure can make an individual feel anything.  We are not obligated to mourn, nor attend a funeral, donate to the surviving family or protest against the acquittal or light sentence of an officers murderer.  Thats exactly as it should be.  Respect is earned, not required and caring about someone requires a general and meaningful interaction. Knowing just how dangerous (or sometimes boring) a police officers job is requires a genuine interest.  The feelings of some against the police should be evident that they can organize and protest when they feel the police are wrong.  Some are simply interested in rioting or looting but just as many have an honest distrust and/or hatred of law enforcement because of real, imagined and media inflated situations where the police broke the public trust.

Well that never happens.

No one is in the streets protesting criminal behavior against cops, but they should be.  Its so easy to dehumanize someone; from rival sports fans to dirty faced kids in Africa, we recognize who we align with or who we are apart of.  When the police are seen as a faceless mass, a machine that's only function is to punish you for breaking a law (that are never written or passed by the police themselves), the police become inhuman and therefore not worthy of our compassion.  This isn't the citizens fault, it is the cops.

I do blame us in law enforcement because we are the only ones in the conversation who know what its like to be a citizen and a cop.  Despite some stories to the contrary, not even the most cop of cops is born a cop.  Most of us grew up with, at the least, a general distrust of the police.  We remember what its like up until we get a badge, say some words and go 10-8 and then its us against them.  We interact with the worst of society, we begin to form prejudices based on neighborhoods or streets, zip codes or clothing and we lose that feeling we used to have because we are the police now.  We are the ones with the power to change public perception one kid at a time and we fail each and every time we don't have the conversations.  If we want the public to care, we have to be willing to care first.

This isn't a blanket statement, because I know there are others out there who do put in the time to know a little more of their community than those the dispatcher sends them to meet (or see again for the 12th time this month).  If the only time we break and interact is on a call, we are wrong.  If we want the public to be rightly outraged when an officer is assaulted or murdered, they need to know who we are.  If we want the public to support our actions when they are justified, they need to understand what we do.  The Us Vs Them mentality is an epidemic that we can fix, provided we try.

Entitled to Your Opinion: You Need to Argue Better.

This is the internet.  No one reading this should be surprised by that fact because there is probably no way in hell you found your way here without having a basic understanding of what you were getting yourself into.  If you happened to not understand what you were doing and found yourself here anyway I am impressed with your navigation skills while also being a little concerned about your situational and cultural/technological awareness....or you might be using Internet Explorer.

Anyway, my point is that the internet is the safest way to say offensive things and not be punched in the mouth; it s a place where one can launch into a diatribe about contrails or Sandy Hook hoaxes and have no fear whatsoever of the social backlash because when linking to all the infowars.org articles doesn't sway the crowd over at the Moms Demand Action facebook page, you can close the browser, adjust your Guy Fawkes mask for maximum visibility and boot up WOW.

For most of what we use the internet for (cat videos/youtube, shopping, facebook) there is no real need to take things too seriously, though much of our personality is in what we share and how we interact when there is a topic of debate.  If you have never been involved in a debate on the internet then this is either your first day or you are so passive/aggressive that you write your comments/rebuttals to a topic or post down on a piece of paper next to the computer so hard that you know they will feel it.

But seriously, there is absolutely no way that I am aware of to avoid a disagreement on the internet.  Right now there is probably a flame war taking place over the lead content in Swarovski candelabras between a 30y/o homemaker in Omaha and a 22 y/o cafe hipster in San Diego and that argument is probably on an Off Roading forum because of course it is.

dont bother saving it, it will only make sense here.

I enjoy the internet debate as much as the next guy, and we in the firearms community can (will) get pretty heated about anything that is even remotely connected to the Second Amendment.  Since 2A rights are more-or-less constantly under attack from one group, politician, party or person, we stay in a perpetual state of defense when the conversation comes up while also having to police our own when they go off-reservation.  This is the nature of things and its not likely to ever change because those who would rather disarm the populace and rely on the government to protect them are not going away and if anything are doing their best to co-op the next generation into their way of thinking.  The threat of this is very real and something we should be concerned about; yet some of us are content to marginalize our contribution to the conversation by shooting ourselves in the foot at the earliest possible opportunity.

When preparing to discuss a topic of disagreement, do you have a plan?  Do you have a method of debate?  Is CAPS Lock your immediate go-to?  If you intend to get involved in a debate, there are really two main reasons for doing so; to be heard or to sway the other persons opinion to agreement with you because you know you are right.  The problem with the former is its one dangerous step away from being a troll, the problem with the latter is that the other side believes themselves to be right as well and reaching a point of agreement or changing their mind is a very steep slope on the internet where there is almost no commitment needed to act like an asshole.  Despite how much you may dislike this-or-that person, law, topic or noun, you wont be winning hearts and minds by using dismissive language or terms.  Referring to the President as Obummer, Obunghole, or The liar in Chief isnt going to sway the opinion of someone who supports his policies at face value or is neutral to the point of debate.  Using Libtard or Democrap also does very little to strengthen your position in an intelligent conversation.  While we may not want to respect the person, party or position, they do deserve a degree of respect at least in name or position to keep the argument from pinwheeling in flames like a plane full of nuns into an orphanage just because you think you will be the first person to sneak One Big Ass Mistake America (Obama, clever) into a debate about the Affordable Care Act (AKA ObamaCare).  Using someones actual name or official title in your disagreement allows you to attack their message, policy or opinion as opposed to just attacking them.  Avoiding pejorative nonsense does wonders for your debating success and if the other side of the debate results to name calling, you aren't the one who looks like an asshole. 

Likewise, there is a fine line between political cartoons and racist/tinfoil hat bullshit.  By "fine line" I mean "completely obvious and worlds apart."

                A: Political Cartoon.                                  B: Racist Bullshit

As you can see, the differences are subtle but if one looks close enough they can see the difference.  What is gained by going route B?  Nothing at all if your mission is to sway opinion, but if you are just interesting in trolling, pissing people off and being the loudest, most obnoxious person in the room, route B or a variation of it is probably the plan.

Well, guess what?  No matter the topic, nonsensical crap exists to support/attack it and I would be willing to bet that a great deal of internet bandwidth is used up sharing macros and memes that are disingenuous, racist, out of context facts, lies or bad photoshops (or all of them).  In the world of instant access to fact checking information, no one bothers it seems because whats facts when we can spin up our respective base by lying?

We know this is bullshit

Guess what?  So is this.  

Despite how much many want the "2.5 Million" to be true, there is simply no way that it is.  Guns prevent crime, sometimes in ways we cannot observe.  If a bank has an armed guard, how many crimes does his presence prevent?  No way to know.  If a police officer is diligent about parking lot pass-throughs in a mall, how many muggings does he prevent?  No way to know.  Yes, this number if oft quoted, not updated and based on bad research.  Dont believe me?  Check it out here, here or here.

We know the macros regarding the Ft. Hood shooting is a lie, and we may just assume the 2.5 Million is true because of conformation bias.  If it aligns with what we believe, we are more apt to agree with it without bothering to put in the work to confirm it.  As a pro-gun person we see the Ft. Hood macros as crap, yet may do nothing to confirm the validity of the 2.5 million statistic.  On the alternate side a liberal that is anti-gun (if one is reading this, hello) may swallow the Ft. Hood crap as truth but doubt the 2.5 million statistic as NRA propaganda.  In this case, the liberal would be half right.

We sometimes get so emotionally involved, lazy or angry that we fail to fact check, or devolve into arguing with photos instead of well thought out points and facts.  The internet is full of BS and sharing it without fact checking doesnt help anyone, it just fuels more BS and muddies what should be a very common sense debate.  If you want to troll, I cant offer you any advice beyond maybe join 4/Chan.  If you want to change minds as a responsible member of the 2A community, my advice is to check your facts, trust but verify and above all else, be objective.  Our opinions are important to us; if you want your opinion to be important (and respected) by someone else, you may want to take a high road approach to the debate and treat it more like a conversation with your grandmother than with a crazy hobo.  Also, googling the truth behind something before sharing it on facebook or IG is very helpful.

Active Shooter Alarm System: More Fire Alarm than Fix.

A district in Massachusetts this week unveiled the country’s first installation of a shooter-detection system inside a U.S. school that can recognize and track a gunman roaming through the building.

 A Massachusetts based company has developed a shooter detection system for schools.  Shooter Detection Systems has installed the system in one Massachusetts school with apparent plans for more systems to be fielded.  The system works similarly to existing military technology; detecting and pinpointing the location of gunfire and relaying that information to, according to an MSNBC article

...mobile app sends text messages with the school name and exact location of the incident to the superintendent, principal, police chief, and school resource officer. Once alerted, the officials also can track the gunman’s movements.

While this sounds like a super cool use for technology, I cant help but notice the fire-alarm mentality behind it.  Sure, a system that tracks every time a gunshot is fired can be helpful in directing authorities to the location of the shooter so he is given a chance to either self-terminate, surrender or be incapacitated (hopefully in the face) but how useful is such technology on a broad scale against already existing systems such as eyes and ears attached to armed teachers and school LEOS?  Eyes and ears are available at no extra charge with a properly trained and willing armed school employee or a little extra room in the budget to hire a school LE officer and/or private security.  At the cost of this system (the pilot system was free of charge because of course it was) and the cost to maintain it and work out the bugs, the annal salary of an officer (probably more than one) could have been paid and the cost to train and arm teachers would be even less but obviously for some of the country the idea of arming teachers is akin to the idea of doing a gravel slip-n-slide then juggling lemons.

Dont get me wrong, I think this system is a good idea and Im not going to pretend that more shootings are not going to happen because they are.  They are going to continue to happen because we arent trying to fix the problem,  we are fighting against those trying to go after the tools that are most preferable to killers.  I see this as being pissed at a pie for baking after ignoring the fact that we put all the ingredients together and then put it in the oven.  The longer we ignore the mental health issue, the more we will seek reactive solutions that may minimize deaths but are doing little to actually prevent them.

There is a large social issue here that cant be contained or explained in a neat blog posting or even a text book.  Understanding the mind of a troubled person is not my area of operation, I work on positive solutions to mental health failures that are more...direct action in nature, but that doesnt mean I dont think theres a conversation that needs to be had in the 2A community regarding this issue.

Our society is going down the road of explaining our position with macros and memes, Facebook posts and Tweets.  I appreciate succinctness when it has a place but all the likes in the world wont stop school shootings any more than they will feed Africa.

This type of conversation plays on ignorance more than it does good will and directs the conversation into feeling accomplished just by sharing something.  Political correctness is disarming us; not directly, as our recent elections have shown us that the draconian gun control we feared following the New Town shooting is largely dead in all but the most fanatical liberal mind.  Rather, the PC mindset is going to treat mental health as an issue we are not supposed to address for fear of insulting or alienating someone and then treat the result as a fire to be prepared for by putting in an alarm. 

 
Well, just like most fires are caused by mans inattention, so are active shooters.  The signs are often there and in the aftermath there are almost always people stepping forward saying that threats were made or strange behavior witnessed yet that hindsight lesson is ignored.  If we ignored the dangers of gasoline soaked rags left unattended next to a dryer vent I think Natural Selection would have seen fit to remove our DNA from the world; ignoring the troubled kid with obvious signs of violent tendencies or unchecked rage is no different.  In LE we call this a clue and more investigation is probably wise and by "probably" I mean "definitely."

So while this shooter alarm may prove very useful, I see it as taking pride in the fact that the fire department is coming after ignoring the faulty wiring in the arts and crafts closet that went all dark ages on the collection of paper mache Shakespeare busts.

One more tool for a problem society is happy to whistle nervously and look at their feet to avoid. 

Home Defense, Crystal Balls and Time Travelers

So there I was, perusing the morning news feeds as I usually do (you may picture me doing so in a stately smoking jacket if you wish) and I came across an article espousing the new Sig Sauer MPX over the shotgun for home defense.

Yes, the author made some reasonable points to why the shotgun isnt for everyone and how something smaller, with a larger ammunition capacity would serve a better purpose.  I do not disagree.  The author, in case you didnt click on the link, is Robert Farago of The Truth About Guns...I have agreed (at least in part) with Robert Farago....didnt see that coming.

....Anyway, the article isnt what bothered me.  Despite some contextual issues with his reasoning behind choosing what is basically a handgun with a stock over a shotgun, it was the comments on the article that got my attention.  More pointedly, comments that leads the reader (me, in this case) to believe the writer has a plan and that plan is based on what they think is going to go down when someone kicks in their door.  As some of them are written, these men/women are obviously one of two things:

1) From the future

2) Clairvoyant

Below, for your reading pleasure are some of the more interesting comments.  

 The big takeaway I got from the article posted a few weeks ago by the combat medic was: A 12 gauge is the only firearm that will reliably incapacitate an attacker with just one shot.

dafuq?

The sound of me racking my Chinese pardner pump will scare the hell outa most lowlifes. $200…except I keep it ready to go with safety on 

He IS clairvoyant

The average, run of the mill home invasion will be committed by people with hand guns, just by having a long gun you will make them the limited ones.

 And nothing beats the sound of a shotgun being pumped for intimidation, especially if you follow this up with gleeful, psychotic laughter. Ham it up, go full Disney villain with it. The psychological effects of laughing at your assailants while preparing a ballistic eviscerator is unbeatable. Inspires confidence on your part, and nobody who grew up watching daytime television sticks around in a dark house with what can only be a heavily armed crazy person (this is supposed to be you).

Plus having a BG hear the cycling of a pump action as he’s in your house is unmistakable. So the butt pucker factor is well,,,,,,,Priceless.

Now, in all fairness, not all of the comments are like this, some are well educated, thought out, show obvious training/experience, or provide a common sense argument to common nonsensical arguments.  Also, some are just hilarious, like this one.

The shotgun is a fantastic HD weapon. But it has the most complicated manual of arms of any type of firearm. It requires much training to become and remain competent in its use. Have you practiced reloading it? In the dark? Covered in baby oil? On a boat with a goat? Have you, Sam I Am?

What I see most of all is people having a plan and their plan is based on what they assume will happen.  Some may envision themselves being instantly aware of a home invasion as soon as the dirt bag enters the home (see option 1, or option 2 as to how this would be), others have an idea about stalking through their home (perhaps in cammo, baby oil and vest like Dutch from commando) to confront and engage the intruder (who WILL be armed with a handgun, I hear).

And of course we have others who like the idea that simply racking the shotgun will scare off even the most brazen of stereotypical home invaders like some sort of reverse pied piper device.  the truth, of course is somewhere in the middle.  All of these fantasies/plans are possible, but how likely?  A plan is a thing to have no doubt, but that plan needs to be based on what a bad guy is capable of doing, not what you think they will do.

The fact is, many people dont interact with criminals, especially violent ones and because of this dont understand the mindset and motivations of such a person.  A criminal, a violent felon, is not some cardboard cutout Hollywood villain that is programmed with conditioned responses based on what someone wrote in a script. Many felons are not strangers to having guns pointed at them, even felons-in-training have likely been witness to more gun violence than the average person (veterans of course exempted).  What someone is capable of is almost impossible to know and all practice and training should be done with that in mind.

Pictured:  a high probability of zero fucks given when threatened with a gun

Firearm choice is an important decision.  Ive weighed in on the shotgun for home defense before and dont see any reason to beat that horse here.  Whats more important is planning of realities and those things you can control.  In a home defense situation there are far more things you cant control than things you can.  For example, heres just a short list of things out of your control:

Time of break in
Entry point of intruder
Your location when break in occurs
Your state (awake/asleep)
Number of intruders
location of family members at time of break in
Weapons intruders are armed with
Initial response of intruders to you

Your plan needs to account for these probabilities, otherwise its a horrible plan that will put you dangerously behind the power curve when what you thought was going to happen, doesnt.

Train accordingly.